Labor for Love
by Phoray
Summary: WAFF. Kagome and Uny Yasha...brought together by the symbolic love of a special box.


Fanfic 

Labor for Love

* * *

Lunch, container and all, was thrown to the kitchen floor at their feet, dumping its contents across the floor. The young girl wailed, mouth open, eyes scrunched, and hands clenched into fists.

"I'm never taking that stupid box to school again!"

Witness to the whole scene, her fathers eyes softened with sympathy for her. He stooped down, picked up the _bento_ box, and wiped the remnants of the meal left uneaten off of its smooth wooden surface. Sitting it on the table almost reverently, he turned back to his only daughter with a solemn expression and waited for her to finish. The girls' tears had died down to little hiccups, as she watched his actions.

"Are you angry with me father?" She asked in a small little voice.

"No," he said slowly. "But I'll have to have an explanation." He motioned to the box resting on the table. The girls eyes scrunched up again but no tears followed.

"All the kids… they have different boxes. They were all different colors and made of metal and they had cool cartoons on them and all of them had different food. They said mine was stupid 'cuz it had weird food in it." Her father blinked at the fast run on sentence as well as at the strange terms within it. He was not particularly good with English and her daughter was usually good at speaking only Japanese at him. Add to that the strange slang terms and you have a slightly confused father on your hands. 

However, he had gotten the gist of it and similar instances at work had given him experience with this situation. He sighed. Though coming to America for a two-year lecture tour had been a hard decision, he only regretted it when it came to his daughters' integration into the American world.

At six years she was extremely sensitive to social differences. She was not ashamed of her Japanese blood and he didn't want her to be. So he tried to instill pride in the ways that Americans deemed as so much excess baggage. Besides, they were returning next year and he didn't want too many adjustments having to be made.

"Kasha, there is no reason to be embarrassed. Your mother worked on this with love and hope in her thoughts the entire time she prepared this, the _bento_ box."

"But—

"You know, if it hadn't been for this very box, your mother and I wouldn't have gotten together and had you?" Kasha's eyes widened in awe.

"That box made mommy and you love each other?" Her father's eyes seemed to light up with warm remembrance.

"Yes. Yes, this wonderful little box actually caused me to admit my love for your mother in the only way open to me at that time." Seeing that his daughter couldn't appreciate the difference, he gave up on that specific point. Lifting the small child up easily, he sat down, and placed her in his lap.

"Let me tell you about how mommy and I got together, hmm?" Kasha nodded eagerly. Her daddy told such great stories! Like the one about when he saved mommy from that evil centipede lady and helped her kill that meanie, Yura the Hair. 

"Well, it all began when your mother lost her own bento box that her mom had prepared for her."

****************************************************************

"Where is it?! I'm sure that I left it right here!" Kagome stomped her foot in frustration. All she wanted was to get home, but things kept cropping up!

Miroku came up beside her, and she lost all anger at the moment, as she spied his hand passing ominously close to her butt. Her nails bit into his wrist as she forcefully pushed the hand away. Kagome glared at Miroku and he tried to distract her.

"What is it, you are looking for, Lady Kagome?" It worked.

"My bento box! I left it right here and I have to return home with it!"

"Feh! What's so important about that box anyway?" Both Miroku and Kagome looked up at Inu Yasha sitting on the branch and leaning on the trunk.

"Why?" She asked, looking up at him suspiciously. "Did you take it to keep me from going home?" Sango joined the group. 

"What's going on?" She asked in an aside to Miroku.

"Inu Yasha has apparently stole some special box in an effort to impede Kagome's return to her home in her own time." Sango instinctively stopped Miroku's roving hand and gave it a painful pinch as she returned it to him. Miroku rubbed his pinched flesh, grimacing. Inu Yasha came down from his perch, and stalked over to Miroku.

"I did not! I would not stoop so low as to steal a stupid box full of weird food!" He suddenly got a gleam of mischief in his eye. "It was probably Shippo!"

Shippo, entering the clearing, heard his name, and feeling that, somehow, something else was being blamed on him by Inu Yasha, shouted out, "I didn't do it!" He then proceeded to attack Inu Yasha's foot. Inu Yasha then shook him off, sending him flying into the distance. Kagome's eyes widened as she watched Shippo fly off. 

"You could have hurt him!"

"He was the one gnawing on my ankle like a rabid rabbit!"

"He's a fox!" Inu Yasha just stared at her.

"What has that have to do with anything?" Kagome looked flustered, and searched for an escape. She pointed at him accusingly.

"You're just trying to change the subject!"

"What? The subject being that your insane?! Feh!" Inu Yasha threw up his hands and stalked off into the forest. Not going far, he could still hear the conversation of the group he had just left behind.

"Why can you not return without this… bento box?"

"Well… It's kind of complicated. In my time, the parent, or any loved one for that matter, show their support and love by sending the child to school with a specially prepared lunch, contained in a thin metal or lacquered wooden box divided into compartments."

"What's so special about this… lunch? Isn't that a meal prepared for midday?" Sango asked.

"Yes. The food is prepared with the intentions of making it so delicious-looking you could eat it with your eyes." Kagome's eyes gleamed as she entered 'Lecture Mode.' "In fact, no food is "just" food in Japan, the attractiveness of the food is almost more important than the taste or nutritional value." She paused. "My mom is especially creative when it comes to my bento. She use to make little cakes into the shapes of puppy dogs with a little bit of coconut added to the ears to make them look fuzzy." 

Kagome got a thoughtful look in her eyes. "Maybe that's why I seem to be a bit obsessed when it comes to dog ears?" She looked at them quizzically.

"Anyways, on with this educational experience. Mothers take extreme care in the preparation because each obento serves as a connection between the uchi, home, and the soto, outside, represented by the school. The mother wants her child to be reminded of the home and make them aware of how much they are loved. It must be attractive and must encourage the person to eat all the food within it. Often if a person fails to be able to finish his or her obento the blame is placed on the mother's inability to prepare a proper lunch. Though a young child is not aware of this, I am. And so I take care to not leave one little bit to show my appreciation to my mother. I always show her the empty bento. Her eyes sparkle with pride and I feel I've brightened her world just a bit more every day."

Going over to her pack, she lifted it up and placed it on her shoulder.

"So. You see why I've become just a little emotional about this? It's a labor of love that I cannot dishonor by not returning with it. I guess I'll have to, though. She'll be so disappointed."

"Why don't you just say a demon destroyed it?" A little voice from the ground said. Shippo had returned a few minutes ago, none the worse for wear, though he had lots of leaves stuck in his fur.Kagome hunched down to Shippo's level.

"I cannot do that. I would further smear all that the bento box stands for, love as well as trust. I cannot lie to the one who prepared it for me in the first place." Shippo looked down at the ground with shame for even suggesting such.

Getting up she headed towards the Bone Eaters Well.

"Hey, don't look so glum. If I don't get into too much trouble, I'll try to bum a batch of my mom's chocolate chip cookies." Shippo perked up at the mention of cookies. 

"Double chocolate?"

Kagome laughed. "What do you think I am, a God? After this, I'll be lucky to get just the regular kind." With that, she slid down into the well, leaving all to think on what she said. Especially a certain hanyou, about 150 ft away.

******

Inu Yasha's senses told him that the girl had, indeed, left for her world. He looked around at his surroundings. Quite normal to him, which would be quite beautiful to us, it seemed to soothe his nerves.

However, one thing seemed out of place. Standing over the bento box, his frustration came back to him, ten-fold.

"All that, and the stupid girl left it here." Nudging it with his clawed toe, he thought about all that Kagome had said about it. A glimmer of an idea began to take hold in his mind. Since it seemed to him quite sappy, he resisted with a crumbling will. Placing the lid firmly back on to it, he took the smooth wooden box, and tucked it into his kimono. Glancing around to see if any were watching, he took to the trees.

******

"It's been three days and Kagome still isn't back and we have no idea where Inu Yasha has run off to, either." Shippo said sadly.

"I am guessing, that Lady Kagome has gotten into a bit of trouble concerning the bento box. Perhaps we should cross into her world and try to charm her mother into releasing Lady Kagome into our capable hands?" His hand twitched in response to the idea. *Whack*

"You hentai! Don't even think those nasty little thoughts around me!" However, they did lean over the well in consideration. Looking into the inky blackness, they saw a pair of eyes looking back at them.

"Eeeekkk!!" All of them fell away from the well in fright. Swinging her leg over the lip of the well, Kagome appeared before them.

"What's all the screaming about?" She asked innocently. The trio face faulted with embarrassment. Kagome just gave them the *your all insane* look. Glancing around, she noticed that a certain hanyou was missing. 

"Where's Inu Yasha?" Spitting grass out of his mouth, Miroku stood up and answered her.

"He never returned after you accused him of the theft of the bento box." 

Kagome almost toppled over when our favorite fox demon latched onto her legs. She looked down into his eager little face.

"I suppose you want the cookies?" He nodded. She smiled and then laughed. Dropping her bag to the ground, she looked over at him. "Guess I can't sneak anything by you."

The little demon puffed up with pride. Locating the package, she pulled it away, when he reached for it.

"I hope you realize the begging I had to go through to get these? Just two for each or us." She explained what had happened as she dished the out. "I was in tons of trouble and I thought mother was going to ground me." Receiving his cookies, Miroku gave her an odd look.

"People bury their children as a form of punishment?" Kagome burst out laughing, and ignored the weird looks she received from them. "Oh," she sighed. "I think I'll save that explanation for another day."

"Well," Kagome looked around. "I guess we shall have to wait for him at Kaede's hut. It's funny though. Usually he's the first to greet me." The group left the well, not noticing the set of eyes looking down on them from above. 

******

Pushing aside the mat, Kagome left the semi-darkness of the hut. The sun was just setting on the horizon creating a rainbow of intermeshing colors in the sky. She lived for these moments, on the other side of the well. Before the smog and the skyscrapers, she was sure every sunset was as heartbreakingly beautiful as this one was.

Sighing, she made her way over to a tree, and leaned up against it, thinking. Inu Yasha had yet to return, and frankly, she was beginning to worry over the hanyou.

Frowning, she found it interesting that her thoughts turned to him time and time again. Gone were the thoughts of parties and shopping. It seemed like that life was slowly slipping away from her. She knew in her heart, however that she could never leave her true family for the one she had been adopted into here. But the thought of leaving them, leaving him…

Inu Yasha watched as Kagome left the hut, pausing to look at the sunset. For some reason, he had noticed she always watched it with a far-off look in her eyes. She started going towards a tree and he felt his time would have to be now or never. He made it to the tree before she did and he waited. He was becoming nervous and he touched the smooth wooden box as if to make sure it had not fallen out.

Looking down at her shiny black head, he felt his nerve slipping away. Suddenly looked up and saw him. Her eyes widened and she stepped away from the tree in surprise. He followed her. "Wait." He said, as he stepped forward. She paused.

"I have something… for you. Here." He said abruptly, holding something out to her. She tried to look into his eyes, but he wasn't looking straight at her. Giving up she looked at the offering. She gasped, taking it from his hands, her fingers brushing his.

She looked up at him. "Where did you get this?"

"You left it here. I found it right after you left and…open it." Noticing that it was, in fact, heavier than she had left it, she slipped off the lid and stared. 

The bento box was full of things like mushrooms and … squid? Where had he gotten squid? Had he put little shavings of bark in the shape of a smiley face on them? And there… There was a little cake in the shape of a puppy dog with a little bit of shredded cherry blossom petals on the ears for fuzz. In fact, it seemed all the foods that she had especially liked from this time were in the box. Though some of it was crude, she could sense and envision the extreme thought and work put into it to prepare it for… her. She could also sense another thing. And it had her heart beating quickly. Tears of happiness welled in her eyes. Pulling her eyes from it, she looked into the nervous hanyou's eyes.

##

Inu Yasha, torn, waited for her reaction. When it came he deflated in on himself. Seeing the film of tears in Kagome's eyes, he cursed himself for a fool. "I'm sorry if I messed it up." He said gruffly. 

"You didn't mess anything up, Inu Yasha. Instead, for once, you've fixed everything." Setting the box on a stump nearby, she rushed into his shocked arms. Staring ahead he stroked her hair, feeling content and complete at the same time. 

Feeling her shift, he looked down. She was looking at him with such a shining brilliance in her eyes that he did what he felt was so natural at that moment. 

The sun hit the tips of the treetops of the forest with a flash of brilliant gold the very second his lips touched hers. Kagome sighed, and deepened the kiss by standing on her tiptoes, as his warm arms wound around her, bringing her tightly to him.

The sun had said it's last goodbye before they separated enough to take a breath. Resting her head against his chest, she sighed again. "I love you, Inu Yasha." Also natural, at that moment, he replied. "I love you as well."

Taking the bento box from its resting place, they sat below the tree. Feeding each other the contents of the box, they didn't notice the stars twinkle out there hello. A cherry was slipped into her mouth, and it was so full of juice, the liquid leaked from the sides of her mouth. Embarrassed, she made as if to wipe it away with her sleeve, but Inu Yasha stopped her. 

"Let me." He whispered. Leaning over her, he kissed the problem spots, lightly licking the juice away. She shuddered. Pressing his lips again to hers, she felt the tip of that same tongue probe the opening. "Inu Yasha… please." Inu Yasha, of course, obeyed.

******

"Daddy! Daddy! What happened next? Tell me what happened!" Inu Yasha, now Kenjo Hirogashi, blinked down at his daughter. 

"What—

"Tell me what happened after you gave her the box! Come on, you have to finish the story!" She gave him a sly look. "Don't leave me hanging!" She said, using an English slang term.

Kenjo laughed and tapped her nose with one normal looking finger. "Ah, well. We told each other that we loved each other and we then proceeded to tell our friends that we were to be married." He said, fudging a little and accelerating some certain events. 

"Oh." She said.

"Do you see how great and important that little box is now?"

"Yes, of course I do! Wait till everyone at school hears about this! They won't believe me when I tell them that my parents fell in love with each other because of this." She hopped out of his lap and went to the bento box resting on the table.

"Is this the same box?" She asked quietly.

"Why, yes it is. You are now carrying the container of this family's love for each other all in that little box." He looked at her seriously, "A lot of responsibility."

She gave him a determined look, looking so much like her mother at that moment, he smiled. "I can handle it!" Another English slang. Folding his hands over his lap and leaning back, he visited his memories again, only to be interrupted a second time.

"Oh, no! I scratched it, Daddy! I'm so sorry!" She looked to be on the verge of tears again. He got up and looked at the damage. 

"It's okay, Kasha. We'll sand it away and it will look just as it was before. Now, come on. Let's clean up this kitchen before mommy comes home." 

"Okay, Daddy.

******

Kagome strode in just as they were finishing swiping down the kitchen floor.

"Mommy!" She ran into her legs, hugging them tightly, almost toppling her mother over.

Setting down the groceries, Kagome lifted her darling daughter up, and hugged her tightly.

"And what have you been up to since you got home from your first day of school?" She asked curiously.

"Daddy told me the story about when you fell in love because of the bento he made for you."

"Oh really?" She lifted her eyebrow up at her beloved husband. He just looked around the room, not meeting her eyes. Kagome's body tensed in excitement. 

"Can I see the bento?" Kasha's eyes met him over Kagome's shoulder and they shared a conspiratal wink. Getting down from her mothers arms, she retrieved the box from its place on the table, now scratch free. She presented it to Kagome and puffed out her chest. 

"It's all gone, Mommy." Kagome lifted the lid and beamed down at her daughter.

"And did you like it?" Her mother asked her eagerly.

"Yes, mommy. It was all great. Everything is." Not catching that last remark, her mother sat aside the box. Pride I her voice she said.

"Go off and wash up for supper, honey." 

Watching her daughter rush up the stairs, she felt her husband's loving arms wrap around her from behind. "Mmmmm." She turned and returned the hug. She looked up at his face, framed by long locks of raven black hair, and into his eyes, now a curios violet color. "I'm wondering…" "About what, love?" "Did you tell ALL of the story?" "You mean, did I tell her that I @#$% her— Kagome swung away from him."mother and the woman of my dreams, the love of my life, and the one I could not live without and conceived her that very, quite steamy, night?" "Rude and Crude is what you are!" She looked at him from the corner of her eye. "I don't remember all those people being there, though." His eyes widened and she giggled. "Come back here, you." He growled. She turned to him, mock anger on her face, hands on hips. "My name is Kagome. Ka-go-me!" Catching her, he replied, "Don't I know it!" right before taking her lips in a kiss as passionate as the first one they ever shared. "Mommy?" They broke apart hurriedly. "Umm… yes honey?" She was still a bit dazed. "Can I have a sister or a brother?" Kagome looked down at her daughter in shock. Kenjo wrapped his arms around her once again. "Why, of course, Kasha. Your mother and I will get right on it." He laughed at his own use of an English slang. Kagome turned to him within his arms. She looked up at him earnestly. "Really?" He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "Tonight." She shivered. Kenjo winked at Kasha over her mother's shoulder. "Okay, supper time!" Kagome's eyes widened. "Oh, no! I haven't prepared it yet!" With that, she bustled off. "Come on, honey. Let's go play outside while mommy makes supper." "Okay!" She bounced out the door and he followed. 

_**_

Kagome glanced out the window, while rinsing some vegetables, and saw her husband pretending to be an elephant, of all things. She smiled, in complete happiness. This was her family. Her true family.

_** Next day, morning_

"Have a nice day at school honey. Be sure to enjoy your bento." 

"Of course I will mommy. 'Cuz you made it right?" Getting in line for the bus, Kasha did not notice her mother's happy tears. Her husband did, though.

He rested an arm across her shoulders and she took and squeezed his hand. "Because I made it. Did you hear that Inu-kun?" He hugged her tightly against him, as he watched his daughter take a seat on the lumbering bus.

"Of course I did. You don't need demon hearing to hear innocent words of love come from your only daughter." He rested his hand on her stomach. He sensed it and smiled. "Oh, it seems she's not going to be an 'only' anymore." 

Kagome blushed. "Do you think—?

"Yup. I guess you always get rewarded when you labor for love, huh?" Smiling into each other's eyes, they walked back into the house, hand in hand. 

* * *

  
Home 

* * *


End file.
